Hi guys,br
br
To start off: my best wishes for 2014! Hope it will be a creatively fruitfull year for all of you guys!br
br
Here’s this thing I’ve been working on for quite a while now (mostly due to the search for the original a cappella). You may also notice I’ve used the guitar rif from the disco loops-tutorial.br
br
I’m particularly worried about the mixdown around the mid-frequencies and the bass. Any other comments about arrangement or effects etc. are also welcome.br
br
Thanks!br
iframe width=“100%” height=“166” scrolling=“no” frameborder=“no” src=“https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/127584245%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-LDlnaamp;color=ff6600amp;auto_play=falseamp;show_artwork=true”/iframe
Hey saw you had a track posted so said I leave feedback in return.br
br
Overall I really like the track, has a great groovy feel to it, the vocal sounds on point too and really suits the track.br
br
The bass around the 2:13 mark feels a tad heavy but thats me just knit picking because to me it sounds like very clean mix.br
br
Really like the stabby sort of chords around the 3:00 minute mark. I wish I could give you more critique about the track but everything blends so perfectly its hard to critique anything. I love the track. Great work.
Thanks Paul,br
br
I’m pleased that you like the stabby chords, because it might as well have come across as a total moodbreaker. They always felt like a big guess to me, not sure if anyone else would like’em, so yippieee! :hehe:br
br
Anyone else? Mix, EQ, or arrangement? I’m trying to make it better so I would really appreciate your input.br
br
Cheers!
kick sounds good…guitar and vocal sound real nice together…oooo the bass is nice…I like some of the transitions you’ve got but I feel like they’re not really pushing the track along theres not much impact(not in like a boom sense lol) with them but honestly thats just being nit picky the mixing sounds good to me and its a really a solid track good job man 
I see what you mean with the transitions.nbsp; Maybe I’ll try some reverse crash or drumroll or something… Thanks for the remark!
love this. the bass is heavy but i think it suits the track. loving those stabs. can you share how you made them? great vocal and used really well.br
br
10/10 
Thanks Phil,/PPI 'd be happy to share the waynbsp;the stabs are built.nbsp; I’llnbsp;have a go at it as soon as I see a spare moment.nbsp;
I’ll hereby have a try at explaining how the stab sound came to be:br
br
To start off I have a little confession to make. I somehow cheated a little bit because I used a sample from Aki Bergen’s recent samplepack (I guess it was on Loopmasters.com). It’s bassicly the kind of sound that was made famous in Inner City’s “Good Life”. I’ve been doing some research and it turns out they sampled it from Nitro Deluxe’s “Brutal House” and they allegedly used a Yamaha DX100 for that. So knowing how dedicated Aki Bergen is to the original analogs I guess he used an original DX100 to sample it from. br
br
Anyway, it’s not only the DX100 that gives this sound it’s distinct “feel”. You can sort of recreate the sound in any DAW. The other main characteristic is the fact that it’s an atonal chord (I’m not sure if that’s the correct English term…it’s not a major nor a minor chord…it’s typical in the jazzy realm… I’ll get back on that). br
br
For starters: take any synth, have one or two oscillators playing square or saw (or the two combined). Turn the envelope for both to a short attack, a short decay (say under or around 500 ms) and the sustain to 0, and do the same for the LP-filter-envelopes but even shorter decay, so you’ll come up with a typical short plucky synth sound. (play around with those envelopes to suit the groove you’re building later). You could also layer some short stabs of accoustic or electric piano’s with this synth (EQ-ing them seperatly is key I think). br
br
br
br
Throw in the MIDI-“Chord”-effect and set these to the desired atonal chord for instance a combination of +10, +14, +15 and a -12 to add some sub if needed . Experiment with different combinations of values and velocities on this Chord-effect in search of the sound you’re looking for, just don’t forget that mostly the pitch of the lowest note (your base note) is the one to keep track of when composing. Apply the needed EQ to the resulting signal. I always feel I get the best results playing it in rather low octaves (C1-C2) and cutting off the lows, resulting in some nice textured sound. Now to top it off: some white noise. I usually put the synth in an instrument rack and make another channel in this instrument rack so I can manipulate the filters of the white noise seperatly from those of the synth.br
br
br
br
br
br
Now for the effects I’ll go back to the Simpler with the Aki Bergen-sample in it. I’ve put it in an Instrument Rack and gave it some extra white noise bite (the same way as described above) and added a synth with a low sine-wave for some sub and mapped some of the parameters for easy automation while arranging. br
br
br
br
The main effect applied to this, apart from EQ-ing and sidechain compression, is arranged in an effect rack with one clean channel leaving through the unprocessed signal and one channel that applies the delay effect. (Off course, you could also do this through a return channel in stead of the effect rack with the 2 channels. For some reason I don’t like return channels, I think I always lose track of them :-p ) Anyway, it’s a band-pass filter with the LFO open, running at about 8 bars lenght , followed by a utility to mono out only 1 side of the stereo signal coming from the filter, followed by a simple delay (fiddle with the timing of this delay or the beat offset percentage for some stereo spacing) br
br
br
br
That’s about it, off course you probably need some EQ, sidechain, and stuff like that.br
br
I hope this is any way understandable, because it was harder trying to write it down than it is making this kind of sounds. I now have even more respect for what you guys are doing here, explaining how you do stuff like this is far from easy.
WOW! Awesome!
Thanks Phil, I’m glad you like it. br
br
Little update now: I’ve had the tracks bounced to solve some phasing issues with the kick and a renegade synth 
, and now I’ve done a new mixdown using my new toy (I got myself an Avantone Mixcube) followed by a re-run on the yamaha’s. I also had a look at the heavy bass and added some reverse crashes and a little drumroll. I was wondering if anyone could run the two on their system and let me know which one they think is best? br
br
Thanks in advance!br
br
iframe width=“100%” height=“166” scrolling=“no” frameborder=“no” src=“https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/129016731%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-2By0Iamp;color=ff6600amp;auto_play=falseamp;show_artwork=true”/iframe
The 2nd one definitely!br
br
I’m only listening to it on some skull candy’s at work at the mo, but instantly you can tell the difference, before the bass was good but it overpowered the rest of the mix and the guitar sounded like it was panned too far to the right so when there wasn’t much goin on it sounded very isolated. But now everything sounds perfectly balanced and the bass really makes the whole mix flow along!br
br
You should be very happy with this one, great track, well done! :Dbr
br
BTW do you feel that the mixcube helped with mixing down? I was scouring ebay for an Auratone but the price of them is ridiculous at the mo, so was thinking bout getting an Avantone instead, plus they’re active so dont need to worry bout getting the right amp etc… :hehe:
Thanks en1gma,br
br
The Mixcube is a real gamechanger to me (I bought one to use in mono. I bought the active version for the same reason you allready mentioned). It’s amazing how accurate this thing is in the midrange. Normally, when using a reference track I keep switching back and forth hundreds of times, but now it all seemed much clearer. I think I switched to the reference track only 5 or 6 times. I can really recommend getting one! As I said: gamechanger…br
br
Hey Nico br
br
Superb track mate. Sounds good on my setup here.br
br
The skippy double kick (or bass) every four bars feels a little off rhythmically though. Could do with hitting a little earlier for me. Sounds too skippy if that makes sense?
Hi Jon,br
br
I think I know what you’re pointing at. Mostly I put some groove-setting on everything which I didn’t in this track (almost everything is exactly on the grid) I felt like this gave the bassline a sort of tight retro-feeling-groove. Maybe I should try a tiny bit of groove on those skipping kicks. I’ll give it a try. br
Thanks for the feedback!